St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-10-27
LEAVING THE REPUBLICANS.
Mrs. LivermOre's Voice Never to be Rails
ed for that Party Again.

Mrs. LivermOre's Voice Never to be Rails
ed for that Party Again.
A scene was enacted in the cOnven-
ton of the Massachusetts WOman's
Christian Temperance Union at Ire
mont Temple, last Wednesday even
ing, n description of which has escap-
ed the attention of the papers of the
city, but will never be forgotten by
those whose fortune it was to witness
it. 1t was when Mrs. Mary A. Liver
more, long distinguished as among the
foremost lady speakers in the country
one whose devotion to the cause of
prohibition and woman suffrage has
been sealed by many years of service
on the platform and with the pen,
formally announced her withdrawal
from any further support of the repub-
lican party, and her determination
hereafter to give her adhesion and
support to the prohibition party. AS
she gave reason after reason for this
step on her part, speaking as if by in
spiratiOn, 5000 people broke forth in
the most tumultuOus enthusiasm. Time
and again as she essayed to speak, she
would be compelled to desist until the
applause subsidized.
Mrs. LivermOre did not speak more
than half an hour. She began by
tracing the history of the republican
party from it's birth. She drew a
word picture of the achievements of
that party in behalf of the slave, and
she paid "a tribute to Lincoln, Sumner,
Grant, Wilson, Garfield and other
great leaders of the "grand old party"
all of whom she had supported by
voice and pen. She then traced the
course of the party on the temperance
question, and coming down to last
year when the party, in its platform,
expressed itself in favor of submitting
a constitutional amendment to the peO-
pie, and not only failed to do it, but it's
governor came out in favor of high Ii
cense-she grew more and more elO-
Quent as she gradually led her hearers
to the point where she said she could
no longer act with the republican par
ty, for its treacherOus course toward
prohibition, but must be found acting
with that party which favors the ami
hilation of the grOg shop.
Amid a stiffness so deep that one
could almost hear pin drop in that
great hall, and before that vast audi
ence, Mrs. Livermore said that wears
ago she saw three men engaged in
clearing a wood lot. They would be-
gin at the bottom of great tree that
had stood the storms and tempests of
a century, and ply their axes first on
one side and then on the other, till the
tOpmOst branches would begin to quiv-
er, slightly at first, and then gradually,
more and more as the wOrkmen con-
tinued to chop, till at last it would fall
completely over, carrying everything
before it. And then the men would
cut off the branches, hitch their mules
to the logs, draw them away, set them
on fire and nothing be left of them but
their ashes. This, she said, would be
the doom of the republican party.
PrOhibitiODists would strike first on
one side and then on the other, till the
great structure would fall and nothing
remain, but its ashes. AS the speaker
uttered these words the audience broke
out with a wild burst of applause that
continued for several moments, and
was repeated little later, when Mrs.
LivermOre remarked that that moment
might be one of joy for them, but for
her 1t was an occasion of sadness, for
when she remembered the long years
she had stood by the republican party
and thought of the grand and noble